Spinward Marches

Overview of the Spinward Marches 

To the average citizen of the Imperial core worlds, the Spinward Marches is just a name. One of the distant provinces perhaps, or one of those troublesome backward border regions. Nothing good seems to ever come out of the Marches. The Civil War was launched from there; major conflicts with foreign states seem to be two–a– penny… and in any case, the Marches are around the end of the Great Rift, very far away, and of no real consequence. 

There is an element of truth in this, of course. The Marches are isolated not only by distance but by the barrier of the Great Rift, which cannot be crossed without considerable effort. As a result, the only way into and out of the Marches is through the narrow Imperial–held strip between the Great Rift and the Vargr extents, aptly named Corridor sector. 

On top of that, the Spinward Marches sector is the Imperial border with the Zhodani Consulate and several smaller human, Vargr, and other states. As a result, it was bound to have an interesting history. Most events in the Marches affect only the local area, but occasionally something does spill out. Usually, it is something bad – that is just the way the universe works. 

To a great extent, astrography dictates many of the characteristics of the sector. The single most important feature is the Spinward Main, which wends its way right across the sector, branching at several points. The Spinward Main is often considered to begin at Mora, though in fact, the chain of stars runs onward into the Star Lane subsector in the Deneb sector for a couple of parsecs. 

From Mora, an arm of the Main runs Coreward into the Rhylanor subsector, but the Main proper is far longer. One of the major arms runs Coreward into Aramis and Regina subsectors, then across to Spinward all the way to the Querion subsector. The central arm runs through the Sword Worlds to the Darrian subsector, while the Rimward arm splits into three major branches. One leads to Glisten and two run into Five Sisters. 

The most important implication of this huge astrographic feature is that it is possible to reach any subsector of the Marches with a Jump–1 ship, albeit slowly. A Jump–2 ship can reach almost any world in the sector by following the Main and then Jumping across onto a smaller local main. Only a handful of worlds cannot be reached in this way. 

There are a few areas of very sparse systems in the Marches, and these tend to channel and restrict shipping. One is in the Aramis subsector but lies close to the border so has little effect on internal shipping. Rather more important is the sparse area in the Vilis and Lanth subsectors.

Not only is this a region of low stellar density, which restricts easy navigation, but the area is associated with a number of curious phenomena. While most can be dismissed as wild tales, the incidence of Misjumps and ship disappearances in the region around what is known as the Abyss Rift is significantly higher than in other areas. The region of sparse systems extends out to Spinward from Vilis but as there is no Imperial territory in this direction this is of little consequence. 

The other region of low stellar density lies to Spinward–Coreward of Collace in District 268 and is known as the Collace Rift. Arms of the Spinward Main run around the edges of this rift, which contains the barely–surveyed world designated 875–496 and the interdicted Droyne worlds of Andor and Candory. 

Politically, there are few barriers to navigation in most of the sector. The Sword Worlds Confederation is not friendly to the Imperium and this necessitates a detour around Sword Worlder space for most ships headed into the Darrian Confederation. The difficulty of access also means that the Imperial holdings in the Five Sisters subsector are more or less cut off from the rest of the Imperium. 

Obviously, crossing the border into the Zhodani Consulate presents significant problems as Imperial ships are not always welcomed there. The same comments apply to the Sword Worlds Confederation. Ships coming into the Imperium from these states are sometimes considered somewhat suspect by the Navy and the worlds they visit. 

The Imperial border is not a hard barrier. It is a simple enough matter to leave Imperial space, visit worlds outside the Imperium and later return. No special permission is needed. However, while the Imperium has laws that govern trade between member worlds these do not apply to systems outside the Imperium, and those systems have their own regulations. Thus although crossing the border is not a big deal, the way ships are treated by the local authorities when they make planetfall can be a disincentive to cross–border trading in some areas. 

Above all, it is important to note that each world, whether part of the Imperium or not, is different and self–governing. The Imperium is a framework that establishes some common concepts and laws and otherwise leaves worlds to their own devices. There are large cultural differences between many of the worlds of the Imperium. Beyond its borders, this is even more pronounced, though only the most isolated worlds are not affected in some way by the values and ideas that exist elsewhere in the universe.